The New Testament has been translated into over 1500 languages, but if someone from Bangladesh or Somalia moves in next door to you, good luck trying to get a copy for them. In fact, many of these translations are not even available on the internet. It turns out that cooperation between various Bible societies is limited, and there is no place in North America (not even the internet) where one can order Bibles in most of these 1500 languages.

“I didn’t know it would be such an ordeal,” Richardson said. Her staff spent weeks chasing dead-end leads before finally sleuthing out an online catalog specializing in non-English Scripture. Richardson ordered 10 Somali Bibles, only to find just one Somali New Testament in stock.

“Many of our refugees come from closed countries where they’ve never heard the gospel,” Richardson said. “It shouldn’t be this hard.”

According to a 2006 United Bible Societies report, 1,541 languages now have a printed New Testament. Fewer than 200 of these translations are available for sale in North America, however, and many common languages are difficult to keep in stock.

Biblegateway.com has 81 translations available on the internet in 36 languages (25 of these translations are in English), so that won’t help much with more obscure languages. The International Bible Society has online Bibles in 39 languages. Christianbook.com has a few Spanish and bilingual Bibles, but certainly would not be a resource if you need to find a Bible in Urdu. In this age where one can order from millions of titles on amazon.com, it is unfortunate that for some, it is difficult to find God’s word.

The number of professional jobs in the oil and gas industry exceeds the number of qualified and available workers. In 1982, enrollment in the geosciences hit an all time high of 35,000 students but today the number has dwindled to about 5,000. Salaries are generous, however the industry does not have a rosy image with the public and that dampens the number of students who declare a geoscience major. Combine the lack of new graduates with a workforce that is mainly over 50 and starting to retire and the shortage of talent becomes critical.

This workforce shortage doesn’t just affect the oil and gas industry; it affects other areas in the geosciences, such as environmental geology.

Here is another statistic that I want to tie in: Of 102 colleges and universities that are members of the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities, only three offer bachelor’s degrees in geology (Wheaton, Calvin, and Olivet Nazarene; all in the Midwest). In some ways this is understandable. Most of these 102 institutions are small, and each can offer only a small number of majors. Many of them do offer degrees in chemistry and biology, and an increasing number are offering degrees in environmental science.

In an age of climate change and resource shortages, an understanding of the Earth is critically important. As Christians enter the debates over global warming, they need to have those in their midst who are well-equipped to speak with wisdom both in terms of their scientific understanding of the complex issues, and their Christian world view. This goes for a number of other issues involving the geosciences as well, such as water resources, wildlife management, mineral and energy resources, and waste management.

PARIS (AFP) – It’s official: France’s rainy, grey and generally cold summer has been the worst for the past 30 years, the weather service said Friday, but tourist arrivals were the highest in five years.

July and August were wet across two-thirds of the country while the Mediterranean region was too dry, said Frederic Nathan, meteorologist at Meteo France.

“Yes we can say that it was a rotten summer,” said Nathan. But the summers of 1954 and 1977 were worse, he added.

Temperatures on the Atlantic coast have been on average two or three degrees Celsius below seasonal averages, said Jean-Marc Le Gallic from Meteo France.

French chat shows have featured experts who are predicting a spike in the number of cases of depression due to a lack of sun exposure.

The gloom and drizzle have been a boon for tanning salons which are reporting brisk business.

“The bad weather has left people feeling low. They want to be beautiful and tanned and are turning to us,” said Dominique Baumier, director of the Point Soleil chain of tanning salons.

We were in France, and we thought the weather was absolutely wonderful. Here in Bucharest, Romania, the highs have been in the 95-105 F range (or even hotter) since the middle of June, so we delighted in having highs in the 60s the entire time we were there.

Which brings up the topic of global warming. When a region has a heatwave, there is a good amount of talk about those high temperatures being a sure sign of catastrophic climate change. And when an area has an unusually cold season, like France this summer, the global warming skeptics come out to mock. But the important thing isn’t whether the weather in a particular place is warmer or colder than normal for a few weeks, but long-term regional and global climate. I’m not going to jump on the global warming bandwagon just because it has been hot in eastern Europe; I’m not going to call it junk science just because I was wearing a jacket in Paris in August.